A few of my co-workers elaborate on every point during meetings. Weekly status meetings drag on and people stop listening.
How could I deal with it constructively?
I've faced that: Hour-long morning standups that went from pairs of people to other pairs of people to talk about things they should have spoken about earlier.
So I just called it out before the meeting started, saying exactly that: updates should be quick, long discussions are welcome but do them afterwards. Every time people started going too deep (if it didn't seem critical), I would ask if they could off-line it.
Just keep on top of it for a while and the culture will eventually change.
NB: Never call out individuals or humiliate people. Make it always about the process. Same with coming late to meetings, just start after a minute and remind the entire team to be on time without picking on anyone. (Unless you have a repeat offender, and than do that in private.)
Accept two facts. One, everyone assumes you know and care about what
they're talking about. Two, nothing that you or they do on a weekly
timescale matters in the slightest to the bottom line.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 15.8 ms ] threadSo I just called it out before the meeting started, saying exactly that: updates should be quick, long discussions are welcome but do them afterwards. Every time people started going too deep (if it didn't seem critical), I would ask if they could off-line it.
Just keep on top of it for a while and the culture will eventually change.
NB: Never call out individuals or humiliate people. Make it always about the process. Same with coming late to meetings, just start after a minute and remind the entire team to be on time without picking on anyone. (Unless you have a repeat offender, and than do that in private.)